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Talk:11-Book Strategy/@comment-220.233.167.179-20191029094647/@comment-1333593-20191111224812
What's easy and what isn't is kind of subjective. It can depend on preferred playstyle as well as skill level. Personally, I find both IGS and Wraiths to be easy enough to never lose a game with, but IGS lends itself much more naturally to my normal strategy. I don't necessarily aim for the fast wins, that is very much luck-dependent, as it has been stated already. 11-book AIs with Rare summons can easily have some by the time they are reached, and those are usually too much for the spirits. More often than not though, there will be at most one such opponent on the map, maybe two. The rest tend to fall quite easily, along with most neutral cities, and encounters featuring lesser Death or Chaos creatures, since Bless is quite powerful in this combination. Converting Gold to Mana and neglecting Reasearch and Casting Skill are characteristic to nearly every 11-book strategy by virtue of them relying on Rare Spells and combat casting, which need a lot more Mana than what is initially available. This is also why I consider the most important early game activity to be exploration, and in that regard, almost nothing compares to IGS. While any Life start allows Enduring spirits, none of the 11-book ones can really do battles with them. One of the biggest drawbacks of Wraiths is that I have to start each game with a compromise: do I summon a pair of Magic Spirits to pre-explore, or do I go straight for the Wraiths and hope that the first direction I send them off in will be a good one? With IGS, I don't have to make that call, regardless of the Land Size or starting Race I chose. Rerolling a bad capital is not really necessary either. Another thing that's going for IGS is the fact that it relies on an enchantment, rather than a creature. If something better comes along, or if fast conquest has failed, Invulnerability still remains a very strong spell. It can be targeted anywhere on the map. In contrast, strategies that rely on a summon need not only a Town, but also a Summoning Circle spell to get a new creature to a remote location. And that needs to be traded for or researched, as finding it in Treasure is out of the question in the official game, unless an encounter with a Special reward has already been beaten to acquire Warlord or Alchemy. One of the easiest ways to mess up IGS is trying to play it the same way as one would with a strong Rare unit strategy, casting Invulnerability straight off the bat and expecting to steamroll. Instead, unless a Wizard or other worthwhile target is already found, this spell should be saved, along with the Mana that would go into casting it. If there is surplus, that should go into more Spirits to explore the map faster or, if there are already four, then into Plane Shift. In fact, since Myrran opponents can very rarely start with Rare creatures, it may even be better to shift earlier, especially if it's already evident that Arcanus can not be fully conquered with Spirits alone. The two things that Wraiths have going for them are their outstanding combat prowess, and the Undead garrisons they leave behind. Both of these naturally make them easier to use for novice players, since they cause strategy to become less important. There are fewer decisions to make, which are also more clear-cut. However, starting off in a bad direction with the first summon can still be pretty bad. While Wraiths do get an extra tile of sight radius due to being flyers, that doesn't quite make up for the double speed of Enduring Spirits, or the prospect of being able to summon multiples of them fairly quickly to explore in different directions. IGS also has a slight advantage when it comes to defending the capital, at least in the official game, although that's largely due to Cloak of Fear not working, and Prayer reducing melee hit chance. Death may need to rely more on luck here if the approaching enemy is not spotted in time.